Monday, 26 January 2015

Plans for over 900 houses in Llay and Rhosrobin are a 'disaster waiting to happen’ says Plaid Cymru candidate

A series of housing developments in villages near Wrexham will push local services to breaking point, according to Plaid Cymru’s Parliamentary candidate Carrie Harper.

She says plans for two separate housing applications in Llay and another in Rhosrobin will total 911 houses.

Plaid Cymru is urging Planning Committee members to consider the collective impact of these developments, which together amount to a new village for the area. They state it is vital to consider the huge impact the new housing plans on greenfield sites will have on local infrastructure such as schools, health and other key services.

Carrie Harper, who as a former county councillor sat on the planning committee for four years, said:

“Plaid Cymru have been arguing against the over-development of Wrexham for many years now. We are already seeing the impact of a decade’s worth of over development on local services such as the Maelor. This issue simply can’t be ignored any longer.”

“Let’s be clear, there is no local need for the level of unaffordable housing we are having forced on us."

In 2011 Plaid councillors persuaded Wrexham council to reject plans to allocate land for 12,000 new houses - a level of development demanded by the Cardiff Labour Government as part of the borough’s new Local Development Plan. The council decided that ‘to continue with that level of development would threaten our communities in terms of our schools, our road networks, our health service, our identity and social cohesion’ and opted for a much lower figure over a 10-year period. The rejection of the plan was also in line with local consultation that demonstrated overwhelming opposition to further extremely high housing development levels.

A revised LDP process is still on-going but Plaid Cymru is reiterating calls for the council to protect local communities such as Llay from being concreted over by developers with developments proposed for Gresford Road and Hayward’s Field.

She said: “Developers have had a free for all in Wrexham for far too long and it’s time this unsustainable level of development was stopped. It still amazes me that the amount of houses being planned in the future are not part of a wider exercise looking at the impact of an increasing population on our local infrastructure.

"Where are the funding increases for our local schools and the NHS to go along with these new villages? The truth is that no one, not the local council, not the Welsh Government have done a single piece of work looking at this issue, despite it being raised time and time again. How on earth does that make any sense? We are being severely let down.

“Just looking at these applications for Llay and Rhosrobin alone. If they get the go ahead we will see a population increase of about 2000 people, including about 300 children. Where will these children go to school? How will the Maelor hospital cope with this population increase when it’s already at breaking point? What about local GPs and dentists, what about council services that are also under pressure? What impact will more cars on the road have? It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

"These questions are vitally important and absolutely relevant. I would say to the councillors tasked with making a decision on these applications, if you do not have satisfactory answers to these questions, the only responsible course of action is to turn these plans down.”

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Great to see another objection for the Llay Development.We have been out leafleting the area since we found out about it in October.Lets hope that that the Planning Executive make the right decision for Llay and the Wrexham area generally as this development will have a major affect on everybody.

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